Canada says close to trade deal with Colombia

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is "very close" to concluding
free trade negotiations with Colombia, Trade Minister David
Emerson said on Monday, calling those opposed to the deal on
human rights grounds as simply "dogmatic."

Emerson also presented legislation to Parliament to enact a
free trade pact with the European Free Trade Association,
comprised of Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
The EFTA accord, completed last June and signed in January, is
the first substantial trade agreement signed by Ottawa in over
a decade.

Emerson said several other bilateral negotiations were
under way, of which those with Colombia were the most advanced.

"I would say that in the case of Colombia we're quite
close, very close," Emerson told reporters.

But political approval could be a tougher task. At the
request of the opposition parties critical of the deal, a
parliamentary committee is now studying the environmental and
human rights concerns surrounding the talks with Bogota.

A similar debate is raging in the United States, where the
AFL-CIO labor organization is fighting a trade deal because it
believes Colombia has not done enough to stop the assassination
of trade unionists and to bring their killers to justice.

"There are people who, for dogmatic reasons candidly, do
not want us to do a free trade deal with Colombia," Emerson
said.

Withdrawing from the talks would punish not only the
Colombian government, which he said was on the path to
democratic and human rights reform, but ordinary Colombians who
need jobs.

Emerson is also eager to get moving on a controversial
trade pact with South Korea, which auto workers fiercely
oppose.